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Throughout my classes, I have been asked to discuss topics related to texts, ideas, and passages in Scripture. I will list my responses below in the order of their appearance.
In his celebrated book, Lectures to My Students, Charles H. Spurgeon made the following statement regarding the urgency and exclusivity of a call to ministry:
“Do not enter the ministry if you can help it,” was the deeply sage advice of a divine to one who sought his judgment. If any student in this room could be content to be a newspaper editor, or a grocer, or a farmer, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a senator, or a king, in the name of heaven and earth let him go his way; he is not the man in whom dwells the Spirit of God in its fullness, for a man so filled with God would utterly weary of any pursuit by that for which his inmost soul pants. (Spurgeon 1954, 26-27)
Do you agree or disagree with Spurgeon’s assessment regarding the call to ministry? Is it true that a person should only enter the ministry if he or she can do nothing else? Some would challenge this assertion as being too exclusionary. What do you think about Spurgeon’s assertion?
My response:
From one perspective, we have to understand Spurgeon is addressing a room full of students who are studying to be full-time preachers. I do not think he was necessarily being exclusive but rather challenging his students to evaluate their own personal calling and to make sure they knew what they were getting in to.
I personally identify very much with the specific calling of ministry within Spurgeon’s statement. I remember feeling absolutely miserable about my purpose until I surrendered to the call of ministry. This is what Spurgeon means by the later part of his statement about the “man whom dwells the Spirit of God in its fullness…would (be) utterly weary.” He is saying the man called of God can never be fully satisfied(“inmost soul pants”) by anything other than entering the ministry. It was the exact phrase I myself kept asking when I was nineteen years old, wondering “Can I do anything else but go into ministry?” It was when I found the answer to be no, I realized I was being called, not that I could not do other things like work as a newspaper editor, grocer, etc but rather I would not ever be fully complete if I decided to ignore the call.
Are We Being Called?
The questions is… Is it possible for someone to sense a “call to the ministry” in general without having received a “specific call” to a particular vocational ministry context? Is there something about your own “call to the ministry” that might add some insight into your opinion on this question?
My response:
Characteristics of Jesus Ministry
wow!